8) There was a huge wave of war hysteria in SoCal after Pearl Harbor that was the subject of the Spielberg film 1941 starring John Belushi. The film had some basis in fact. My mother's family and Diane's family remember local anti-aircraft batteries firing into the clouds and local fighters pursuing ghost planes through the clouds during false alarms. Not every event was a false alarm, however. Santa Barbara's oil field was actually shelled by a Japanese submarine, which lobbed a few shells at a supervisor's shack and caused $500 worth of damage. The rumor/myth has always been that the Japanese sub commander, Nozo Noshino, had been insulted by the dock supervisor there before the war and returned to Santa Barbara to repay him... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardment_of_Ellwood http://www.militarymuseum.org/HistoryWWII.html 1941 <iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6_KOLqpo7z8?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0"></iframe>[/u]
After Dolittle's raid, I can see why they were skittish on the West Coast. As they proved at Pearl Harbor, they could pull off a sneak attack.